


We All Come From Somewhere

by SingingInTheRaiin



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Jon loves to read, Kid Fic, and immediately get super embarressed, but I'd like to think when he meets Martin Blackwood someday he'll remember that, lol, the ship tag is just because Jon pretends to have a boyfriend named Martin, watch out for the Leitners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:49:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21767869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingInTheRaiin/pseuds/SingingInTheRaiin
Summary: Jonathan Sims didn't apply for a job at the Magnus Institute because of the Mr. Spider incident. Or at least, that's not the only reason why. Jon's childhood was riddled with the supernatural, and it is clear that he can rely on no one to protect him but himself.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 11
Kudos: 175





	We All Come From Somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> None of this story came out quite the way I wanted it to, but here, have it anyways lol

Of course Jon knew all the rules about not talking to strangers. But he was quite sure that there was nothing dangerous about a librarian, even if she wasn’t currently located in a library. She’d noticed him staring, so Jon owned up to it by hurrying over to her. “You’re a librarian?”

She looked surprised for a moment, but then she crouched down in front of Jon and gave him a long look. “Yeah, I suppose you could say that. And who are you?”

Even Jon understood the difference between talking to a stranger and giving them his name, so he just moved on to the subject that he actually wanted to get to. “Can I have a book? My library card’s at home.” He nodded towards the large cart behind the woman, already eagerly eyeing the different bindings, and wondering if one of them would be entertaining.

The woman let out a small laugh. “Do you even know how to read yet? You look like a little shrimp!”

Jon narrowed his eyes and put his hands on his hips. He knew that he was small for his age- since it seemed to be all the local bullies ever wanted to tell him- but the insinuation that he couldn’t read was quite insulting. “‘Course I can read,” he told her with no small amount of irritation. “And I’m five.”

“Hm. You’re already a grumpy old man, huh?” She reached out as if to touch Jon’s arm, but he jerked away before she could. She dropped her hand, and then gave him an apologetic look. “Sorry, that was rude of me. Anyways, these books aren’t available for check out. Where’s the local library? I could give you a lift if you need one. Or maybe your parents-”

“My parents are dead,” Jon cut in. He was still grumpy about the not being able to read comment, but he was pretty sure the woman assumed it was because of the mention of his parents. Jon didn’t care about them, though. He didn’t remember anything about his dad, and barely anything about his mom. Why would he care about people he didn’t know? “And the library’s too far. Everyone knows that.”

The woman laughed again, even though Jon couldn’t see anything funny about what he’d said. “Sorry, it’s just- you’re so adorable. I’d feel like some kind of villain if I just let you leave empty handed. How about we make a deal? I’ll give you a book- in fact I’ll give you as many as you can carry- and all you have to do in exchange is tell me your full name.”

That sounded like it was too good to be true. “What if it turns out your books are boring? At least let me take a peek first.”

The woman rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She gestured to the cart. “Have at it. Though you might want to be careful about which one you choose.”

Jon stepped past her to look at the cart. It was an eclectic mix, with half the books looking like fancy leather-bound things that should be in museums, and the other half were just a bunch of random beat up paperbacks. Jon recognized one as a romance novel that his grandmother seemed fond of, and decided that he definitely wanted to avoid that one. “Which library are these from, anyways?” he asked over his shoulder as he sifted through the mountain of books.

He didn’t even notice the slight hesitation before the woman answered. “They belonged to a friend of mine, but his library was- was destroyed. At first I thought that I was supposed to preserve every book of his that I could find, but now I just don’t know. What if it was having them all in one place that led to- Well. I don’t know why I’m telling any of this to a five year old.”

Jon looked over at the woman just to roll his eyes. “I’m five, I’m not stupid.” Then he hesitated for a moment before adding, “I’m sorry about your friend.”

She shrugged, though her eyes looked slightly redder than they had a minute ago, and Jon wondered if he was at fault for asking about the books. Before he could offer an apology, the woman just waved her hand. “It’s fine. I mean, it’s not fine, obviously, since he’s- but there’s nothing that you or I or anyone else can do about it now. Sometimes all you can do in life is accept that there’s nothing you can do.” Jon just nodded along, because she spoke with the tone of voice adults usually used to indicate that they were supposedly imparting some great wisdom upon him. “I can see you don’t really care. You might someday, though.”

Jon went back to searching. His hands hovered over certain books, and he felt almost drawn to them without even looking at the titles or descriptions. Like they wanted him to grab them and read them. For some reason, Jon got the feeling that he should avoid those ones. “Why do you wanna know my name anyways?”

“This is probably going to sound quite pathetic, but I guess I just thought that it would be nice to have someone. Anyone, really. Just someone who I know. I dedicated my entire life to my- my friend. I don’t even know who I am without him.”

After a few more minutes, Jon stepped away from the cart with a decent haul. He’d stacked up as many of the interesting looking books as possible, leaning back and resting his chin on top of the stack to try and prevent any of them from falling. “My name is Jonathan Sims. But everyone just calls me Jon.” And by ‘everyone’, he mostly meant himself and his grandmother. He didn’t really have anyone else in his life who would care to use a nickname for him. 

She gave him a small smile. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Jon.” There was a strange look in her eyes, but Jon didn’t have time to examine it. He had to keep shifting around just to stop the books from tumbling down, and he didn’t want her to take them back because he’d taken more than he could carry. “Have fun with your reading. But, uh, just be careful.”

Jon frowned. “I wouldn’t ruin them.”

The woman started to reach out, like maybe she planned on snatching the books back again. “I know, I meant more that they might ruin you.” She did pluck the top book off the pile, and considering how much Jon’s skinny little arms were already shaking under the weight of the stack, he found that he couldn’t get too annoyed. “You know, most people wouldn’t want these books.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged. “There was never a chance to officially add them to the collection before the library was destroyed, but they are definitely not ordinary books. Tell me, Jon, what are you afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid of anything,” Jon immediately told her. He didn’t even need to take time to think about it. What was there to be scared of? Either bad things would happen and he would have to deal with them, or they wouldn’t and he would be fine. How would being scared help him with anything? 

The woman looked surprised for a moment, and then gave him a condescending look. And yes, Jon did know what ‘condescending’ meant. He’d asked his grandmother about it just last week during a parent-teacher conference where the teacher said that Jon had a condescending attitude towards the other students. “It’s alright if you are,”

“I’m not,” Jon told her firmly. 

There was a long moment of silence, and Jon really hoped this conversation would be wrapped up soon so that he could try and get home with his new books before his arms gave out. “Well what do you love, then? Do you love fire, or the dark, or bugs, or…” she trailed off as she looked down at his arms. “Or books,” she finished, though it didn’t really sound like a question until she asked it. “Do you love books, Jon?”

He thought about it for a moment. “I like them,” he told her. “When they can keep my interest. But I don’t know if I’d say I love them. How can I? They’re just pieces of paper and ink.” It wasn’t until he felt the weight of the woman’s gaze on him that Jon remembered one of the lessons his grandmother was always trying to force onto him. He wasn’t a normal boy, and once people started giving him weird looks, it was time to leave or lie. Since it would be rude to take off when the librarian had so kindly gifted him all these books, Jon settled for lying. He took a few seconds to scrounge around for a suitable one. “I didn’t say that I don’t love anything. Maybe not bugs or books or whatever, but I love… Martin.” The name popped into his head out of nowhere. He didn’t even know anyone named Martin, but it sounded right to him. “My boyfriend,” he told her, in case she didn’t understand.

Whatever sad look that had been in the woman’s eyes earlier seemed to disappear, replaced with a light sparkle. “Oh, well, congratulations.” She bent over to press a kiss to the top of his head. “Good luck, Jon. With whatever you plan to do with your life.”

That seemed like an appropriate dismissal, and Jon hurried back home, staggering under the weight of all the books he was carrying. It wasn’t until he’d gotten into his room and unceremoniously dumped all of the books down on his bed that he realized he’d never gotten the woman’s name. He debated going back to find out, but somehow he just knew that she wouldn’t be there anymore. 

Instead, Jon grabbed one of the books at random, and then went into the living room to settle down onto the comfy chair that he liked so much. He flipped it open to the first page, only to gape at it in surprise. The words on the page were all arranged in little spirals, and when he turned the book to read them, the words shifted and spun so that he couldn’t figure out what they said. It was the strangest book he’d ever picked up, and a grin lit up his face. He couldn’t wait to figure out what it said.   
,,,

Jon’s grandmother generally seemed to prescribe to a system of parenting in which she needed minimal interaction with Jon. So she didn’t even seem to realize that he’d gotten a new batch of books that she hadn’t bought for him. At least not until she heard the loud thud of a heavy volume slamming into the wall.

She came rushing out of the kitchen, and then she just stared at Jon. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He looked at the book on the floor, and then back at his grandmother with an eyebrow raised in a way that seemed to ask ‘does it really require an explanation?’ “That stupid book is unreadable.”

His grandmother scoffed and rolled her eyes at that. “Just because you’ve come across one that is too difficult does not give you the right to fling heavy objects around. You need to have respect for your home and your belongings.” Before Jon could even begin to explain to her that there’s no way that any book was ‘too difficult’ for him just based on reading comprehension alone, she bent down to pick it up. “What is this, anyways? Why are you reading a book about Jack the Ripper? You’re only five, you shouldn’t… oh maybe I should start sorting through them better…”

For some reason, knowing that the book had let his grandmother read it took great priority over the fact that he got a feeling of wrongness when she announced its subject. He didn’t know who ‘Jack the Ripper’ was, but he could take a guess based on the name. The book was full of spirals, though. It shouldn’t have be about a ripper. 

But instead of focusing on that feeling, he just launched himself over to his grandmother to snatch the book out of her hands. He quickly flipped it open to a random page, to see if the words had finally decided to cooperate. “Look at that!” He slapped the page a couple of times, drawing his grandmother’s eyes to the oddly shaped words.

She didn’t seem to find anything odd about it, though, and just slapped the book shut, almost snapping Jon’s hand in between the pages. “This is definitely too grown up for you,” she announced. As she walked away with the book, Jon felt weirdly… deflated. Like something had just slipped out of him, leaving an empty space. But in the end, no matter how interesting a mystery it was, it was just a book. And Jon still had an entire stack to go through.  
,,,

Perhaps Jon should have found it more odd that not a single book from the ones the librarian had let him take was normal. Some of them appeared to have normal covers, and normal little summaries on the backs. Some of them even had pictures of their authors, and seemed like average books. But no matter how strange or normal the books appeared, not a single one of them was readable. 

At first it had been a fun little puzzle to solve, but once he’d gotten through the bottom of the stack without getting so much as a single sentence out of any of the books, Jon was ready to call it quits. Each one messed with him in a different way, from the Jack the Ripper book written entirely in spirals, to the book of farm animals that made obnoxious mooing noises every time he opened it, to the murder mystery where the words were written backwards no matter what direction he read them from, to the high fantasy that scorched him the moment he tried to read a single word. That last one, Jon had tried putting down on the bed and reading it without touching, but it had still burned him, and when he’d tried to explain the source to his grandmother, she hadn’t believed him.

The most frustrating part of all of it was the fact that nobody else seemed to notice how utterly irritating those books were. His grandmother clearly thought he was just making things up, and when he’d brought some to school, the other students had just made some… distasteful remarks. 

In the end, Jon realized that he had to accept defeat. Whatever was wrong with those books, they clearly did not like him. He’d just put them all in his grandmother’s car to be dropped off the next time she went to a charity shop to buy him a new batch. Since the books seemed perfectly fine with everyone else, he didn’t think it would be a problem. And in the end, they were just books, right? Just a bunch of paper and ink and there was nothing they could do beyond cause mild annoyance. Probably.  
,,,

One of the middle schoolers shoved Jon down, right into an inconvenient patch of mud on the ground. It was a big puddle, too, and mud ended up splashing all over Jon. He got to his feet, and crossed his arms over his chest, but he didn’t bother saying anything. He knew that his words would make no difference in the end.

It only took a few minutes for the older kids to get bored from Jon’s lack of reaction, and they wandered away. Honestly, Jon had no idea why they continued to target him specifically when they knew that he would never give them the satisfaction that they were looking for. 

Only after he was sure that the kids were completely gone did Jon reach up to proud at his mouth, which felt tender from where it had smacked against the ground. That’s when he realized that one of his teeth was just wiggling around in the gum. It was a bit sore, but more importantly, it was loose. He was going to lose his first tooth, which basically made him a grown up already.

Jon ran home, stopping occasionally to reach into his mouth and wiggle the tooth back and forth before resuming the trip. He burst inside. “Grandma, Grandma, look-!”

She emerged from the living room, a disapproving look on her face. “And what am I supposed to be looking at, exactly? The mud that you’re dripping all over the place? Or the split lip? Honestly, can’t you stay out of trouble for even a single day? Go get yourself cleaned up, and then come back down here and clean the mess you made.”

Jon let out a long suffering sigh. “Yes ma’am.”

“Don’t get cheeky with me, Jonathan Sims,” his grandmother warned. “Now do as your told.”

Once Jon and the entrance hall were clean enough to meet his grandmother’s standards, Jon finally got the chance to show her what he’d been so excited about in the first place. “Look!” He opened his mouth as wide as he could, and then wiggled at his tooth with extra force so that it would be apparent just how wiggle-y it was. 

He got a light smack to his arm for his trouble. “Keep your hands out of your mouth. And don’t even think of pulling it out.”

“Why not?”

His grandmother rolled his eyes. “Because it’ll come out on its own when it’s ready, for one thing. And for another, there’s no benefit to it. The new tooth won’t grow in any faster, and it’s not as though there’s any reward for losing your teeth.”

Jon narrowed his eyes. “Um, pretty sure there is. The tooth fairy, remember?”

For some reason, that just made his grandmother look weirdly tired. “For an intelligent boy, you do have your moments where it sounds as though you’ve lost all sense. There is no magical fairy that will pay you for your teeth.”

Truthfully, Jon hadn’t really believed that there was, but it hadn’t stopped him from hoping anyways. He already knew that Santa wasn’t real, after his grandmother had had a frank conversation with him about how they didn’t have the money for any big fancy toys when he’d first moved in with her. 

Jon’s shoulders slumped down, and he turned to shuffle out of the room. He heard his grandmother mutter something under breath about Jesus giving her patience, and then she followed him and reached out to ruffle his hair. “You need to stop acting so childish, Jon. The sooner that you understand that there’s no magic coming to change your life, the sooner you can learn to survive in the world as it is.”

She was right. He was smart enough to know better than to act so mopey just because he wasn’t going to get a free quarter in exchange for an unwanted piece of bone. He couldn’t help thinking, though, that it was a real shame that there was nothing magical out there for him. It’s not as though he had a bad life, but he couldn’t help yearning for more.  
,,,

Jon’s grandmother dumped a bag of books down on the table and then left him to look through them and pick out the ones he was actually going to read. He wrinkled his nose at the books clearly aimed at children (ignoring the fact that being eight years old still technically made him a child). 

He was about to toss aside one of the many books that seemed better suited to someone much younger, when he noticed that it didn’t quite look like a book for children. Not with the black and white cover that showed a grossly illustrated spider on the back. 

Jon hesitated for a moment, and then he flipped it open to the first page. It was a thin book, and he was sure he’d be able to read through it quickly enough.  
,,,

Jon’s grandmother slapped him, properly slapped him, for the first time that he could remember. Then she pulled him into a hug, and he could feel the way she shook against him, but he didn’t even understand why she was so upset. “I’m sorry?”

“Where were you?” she demanded, but Jon wasn’t sure he understood the question. Hadn’t he just been in his bedroom, sorting through books? But no, he was slowly aware of other noises around him, and as he looked around, he realized that he was in a small room with nothing but a metal table in it, and a wall of glass. There was an open door, and a police officer sitting on the other side of the table. “Don’t you dare think that there won’t be consequences for this! You can’t just wander off for an entire month and then come back and act as though nothing’s happened! You may act like a miniature adult, but you’re only eight years old!”

The officer cleared his throat. “Ma’am, I understand that you are distraught, but it might be best to wait until the social worker gets here. As I mentioned on the phone, he hasn’t spoken a single word since we found him, and based on the condition of his clothes and skin, it’s difficult to say for sure what happened.”

“I already know what happened,” she snapped. “My idiot grandson wandered off, just like he always does. This is the fourth time, and I just don’t-”

She was cut off by the sound of someone clearing their throat, and Jon slowly looked over at the doorway, still feeling dazed. He felt almost like he should recognize the woman standing there, but he wasn’t sure why. She was younger than Jon’s grandmother, but she was not a young woman. She had her hair pulled back in a strict bun, and was dressed in the kind of clothes that spies on TV wore. “Sorry to interrupt,” she said in a voice that implied she was not sorry at all.

Jon’s grandmother scowled, but it was the police officer’s reaction that Jon focused on. The officer furrowed his eyebrows. “I’m sorry, but this is a private-”

The woman strode into the room as if the officer hadn’t said anything. “Gertrude Robinson. You can thank me any time now.”

“For what?”

Gertrude smiled, and it was a shark-like grin that made Jon shiver. “I’m the one who found the boy.”

Jon’s grandmother relaxed infinitesimally at that information. “Where was he?”

The smile never left Gertrude’s face, and it also never reached her eyes. “He found his way into my workplace. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? The Magnus Institute in London?” 

The name seemed to ring a bell somewhere in the back of Jon’s mind, but it was too far away for him to access the information, so he was content to just sit there and let his grandmother hold him. Though he did notice the way her arms tensed up. “I have,” she said tersely. “And I’m sure you’re already well aware of that if you’re even asking.” 

“You’re welcome for having your boy returned to you. I just wanted to see you before I returned to work. The infamous Ellen Wright. I’ve always wanted to meet you.”

Jon’s grandmother slowly stood up, and looked at Gertrude with an undisguised fury. “I haven’t spoken to my brother in over twenty years. You’re hardly going to learn any interesting secrets about him from me.” 

There was a slight pause, and a small frown on Gertrude’s face for just a moment before it was wiped away. “Why did you cut off contact with James?”

Jon didn’t know why, but the sound of Gertrude’s voice suddenly made Jon want to scream out loud as he felt like it drilled its way into his head. He still felt too sluggish to actually react, though, and his arms were too heavy to lift enough for him to cover his ears. He tried to distract himself by paying attention to his grandmother, who he hadn’t even known had a brother. “He changed when he got his promotion. He became selfish and secretive and manipulative and cruel. I never even told him that my children were dead, because I figured he wouldn’t care.” She gasped loudly, and reached up to cover her mouth with one hand. “Why did I…?” 

The rest of the day passed by in something of a blur. It felt like only seconds passed before Jon woke up in a tacky neon colored bed, and heard faint beeping from nearby. He looked around and realized that he was in a hospital room. “Grandma?” he called out to the body shaped silhouette sitting nearby. 

The way they jerked upright made him think that maybe it wasn’t his grandmother, though. It was too dark to see anything other than a shadowy outline, but the way they moved seemed entirely unnatural. Like watching a figure move in a flip book instead of on a screen, with rough lurching movements that couldn’t be- couldn’t be human.

Jon’s eyes widened, and he heard the nearby beeping grow louder and more frequent. He was vaguely aware that that was the sound of his own heartbeat, and he felt a jolt of fear as the figure moved closer to him. Even as it moved into the faint glow of the light over Jon’s bed, it was still nothing but a shadow. 

This was probably just a dream, just a messed up hallucination from a concussed mind (though the aching in his head didn’t seem like a priority at the moment). It was probably not real, but just in case- 

Jon scrambled out of bed, letting out a sharp gasp of pain when he felt something stab into his arm. Whatever that shadow creature was, it must have just attacked him. He found his voice enough to let out a loud scream as he stumbled towards the nearest door, socks sliding over the slippery floor. 

He crashed down to the ground and continued screaming, and he heard footsteps running closer, but he knew they were going to be too late, and the shadow was going to get him, and- 

The door to the room swung open, letting in a pool of light from the brightly lit hallway, and then suddenly the rest of the room flooded with light too. Jon finally dared to look over at the corner, but there was nothing there, and he didn’t know whether that made him feel better or worse.

The nurses crouched down in front of him, and one of them gently picked up his arm. “You tore your IV out,” she said disapprovingly. “Did you have a bad dream?”

Jon looked at her like she was insane. Did she really think that he’d be that scared of a dream? He wasn’t a dumb baby. He looked down at his arm, and admittedly it did look more like a needle had been torn out than a monster had stabbed or clawed him, but that didn’t mean the monster wasn’t real. 

But he already knew that the nurse wasn’t going to believe him no matter what he said. So he just sighed, and then nodded. “Yeah,” he mumbled.

The nurse helped him back into bed, chattering softly the whole time. “Yeah, the social worker, Miss Kane, warned us that you might have some pretty severe trauma from whatever you’ve been through the past month. If you want to talk about it…?” She sounded just a bit too eager, like hearing about the terrible trauma of an eight year old would give her something to write home about. Even if Jon could remember (and how terrifying was it that there was an entire month he couldn’t recall?), he wouldn’t tell her about it. After a long moment of silence, she shrugged. “That’s alright, you don’t have to talk about it right now. Well, on the bright side, since you seem to be more responsive now, you should hopefully be able to go home soon. You’re healing up very well, Mr. Wright.”

“Sims,” he corrected, even as he barely paid attention to anything the nurse said. “I’m Jon Sims.”

“Sorry ‘bout that.” She put some gauze and tape over the crook of Jon’s elbow, and then stuck a new IV need into the other arm instead. She tucked the blankets around him, and then gave him a bright smile. “If you need anything, don’t hesitate to press that big button there. And try to avoid doing any more damage to yourself, hm? I know you’re young and you seem to heal on the quicker side, but it would be easiest if you didn’t have to heal from anything at all.”

Jon thought that he might have grunted out some vague noise of agreement, and the nurse nodded with satisfaction and then turned to leave. “Wait, can you- can you leave the light on?”

She gave him a sympathetic look that he absolutely hated, and then she left the light on and the door cracked open as she left. Jon stared after her, and looked around the brightly lit room. He was pretty sure that he would not be able to sleep again for the rest of the night. And he was also sure that he would never be able to tell anyone about this, not ever.  
,,,

Jon’s grandmother brought him to her brother’s funeral. There were a lot of people in attendance, and Jon didn’t know any of them. Actually, he did recognize one person. Even if his disappearance a few months ago had mostly been a hazy blur, Gertrude Robinson’s face had stuck out in his mind. He wasn’t sure why, though. 

He and his grandmother stayed in the back of the room, and as soon as the service was over, they left. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a brother?” Jon asked to break the tense silence during the ride home.

His grandmother sighed, and straightened up in her seat. “We used to be very close, but he became like a different person. I hated him for it, and he didn’t seem to care about me anymore either. Jon, I don’t know how you ended up there, but swear to me that you will stay away from the Magnus Institute. That place ruined my brother, and it’s evil.”

Jon didn’t even remember ever being there, and his grandmother was clearly very upset about it, so it was an easy enough promise to make. “Alright, I swear.” But even as he made the promise, he couldn’t help thinking of unreadable books, and giant spiders, and shadow monsters, and boys named Martin. He was sure that if he ever wanted to find answers, he would need to break his promise someday. But for now it was probably for the best that he keep it, because there wasn’t much that an eight-year-old could do against the forces of evil anyways.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried extending the story into Jon's adulthood and his time with the Magnus Institute (and Martin of course), but I had to scrap every attempt because none of them worked quite right


End file.
